A New Trend in Retail is Coming This Way

As John Cashell sees it, people like to spend money.

CashellConsumer: Go out on any Sunday and it seems like the number one recreational activity is consumerism. And no one’s been able to figure out when it’s going to stop.

Cashell is Hudson’s town planner.

He’s been looking over paperwork from W/S Development Associates.

The company has proposed building a million square feet of retail -- on almost 400-acres of land.

Outdoor ambience
Bob Frazier is vice president of development for W/S Development Associates.

He stands at the proposed site on the Merrimack River looking at what used to be a popular golf course.

FrazierPlaza: There will be a focal area; we refer to it as Landmark Square, with a fountain a plaza. Then, during the winter, there would be a skating rink where people could enjoy skating outdoors.

Frazier says unlike covered malls, open-air lifestyle centers create a sense of place.

And the company’s director of lifestyle centers, Brian Sciera, says consumers prefer an outdoor setting.

ScieraWallet: We know this because they vote with their wallets (laughter) when they go shopping. For example, we developed one in Hingham, Massachusetts, and the sales are way beyond what we expected.

The Hudson project is called Riverplace.

And it’s not the only sizable project in New Hampshire that comes with outdoor café seating, and a town square.

The retail corridor off exit one in South Nashua already generates three billion dollars in sales.

And developers want to capitalize on that location with another 450,000 square feet of upscale shops and restaurants.

Called Nashua Landing, it may claim the title of New Hampshire’s first lifestyle center.

And further north in Portsmouth, investors want to tear down the decrepit Parade Mall, and create a Broadwalk -- a 22-foot-wide sidewalk with cafes, condos, offices and stores.

Alan Manoian is a historian and urban planner.

He’s also the economic development officer at HampshireFirst Bank.

Picking up paper
Manoian studies the architectural drawings of the vast Riverplace, and sees some good elements of what's called new urbanist, smart growth design.

ManoianCompact: It’s compact. It’s not sprawling. There is a mixture of uses there. It shows aspects of good economic sustainability.

But, he says, despite the pedestrian-friendly layout, people still need a car to get there.

ManoianTOD: To make these things truly new urbanist, is to create them as transit oriented districts. We can walk here, we can bike here, we can take the bus here. The automobile is not the focal point.

Coffe shop ambi
NiceMall: The bottom line is, it’s still, to quote a CNN article I read recently, a really nice mall.

Sarah DiSano sits in a locally-owned coffee shop in Nashua’s historic railroad district.

She directs the city’s Great American Downtown program.

When these make-believe downtowns open, DiSano says, Main Street retailers may see a drop in business.

DiSanoSoul: But I think there’s no way to really replicate the soul, or that character, or that history, of downtown.

Yet, according to Alan Manoian, that’s exactly what architects of smart growth villages are trying to do.

At conferences around the country, Manoian says other planners describe how they look to the past:

ManoianConf: We’re finding the 1870s birds-eye view maps of historic New England manufacturing villages. It’s somewhat ironic, that here we are in New England, and we’re the last to get hip to it, and it’s our indigenous creation and model.

Re-imagined downtowns won’t dot the New Hampshire landscape for some time.

Hudson’s planning board is evaluating the proposed roadway system for Riverplace.

But town officials say they’re a long way off from a formal review.

Across the river, the Boston-based developers of Nashua Landing expect to complete their site plan review by the summer.

In the same vicinity, the 20-year old Pheasant Lane Mall is braced for change.

Perhaps feeling the competition, the management wants to bring more sunlight into the mall – and more upscale women’s stores.

And in Portsmouth, the historic district commission has to sign off on the proposed Broadwalk before any of the city boards can review it.

For NHPR News in Nashua, this is Sheryl Rich-Kern.